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(For anyone who doesn't know, the restaurant is our eating space at the Land. At one point in time, say, 10 years ago, it was a real restaurant but we just aren't that creative with names around here.)

Kid A: Let's run to the restaurant together, mama! Your baby wants to run.Me: (Smiling) Um, my baby is making my body too heavy for me to run.Kid A: But he wants to run!Me: Well, he's going to have to wait a while for that, because it's going to kill me to run right now.Kid A: (Shaking his head with his hand on his forehead) I just don't know about this baby and a mama who won't run.

I've been so happy all day because it is as balmy as Spring here and sunny too. This is after it rained so long and hard that the river rose until I wondered if it would just meander right up to our cabin and take us away. (Where to? I wonder. Maybe it would be an adventure.) Rain makes me feel like I have to slouch, like the sky is closing in on me, as much as I appreciate the green green tender little shoots of fern and grass that it brings with it. We already live in a forested valley, so we see little enough of the sky as it is. It is wonderful to have sun and light.

In the past nine years I've only had two Christmases in Canada, which means that seven of them have been without snow. I'm moving to the other side... snow? Who needs snow? Heck, who needs a tree? Apparently we don't, since we didn't get one this year and our children aren't old enough to feel deprived yet. (Although Kid A did say to me in a sweet little pathetic voice when I asked him what I should get the superstar Daddy for Christmas, "A Christmas tree for our house". We've mostly just been visiting friends and ogling their Christmas trees.

I did get them stockings, though, and I am more excited than I've been for a long time about when they'll open them. (Bright and early Christmas morning. None of this midnight the night before nonsense for us.)

Paul, one of the guys in our community, has been watching the song "this beautiful day", or "on a day like today," or something like that, by Donovan on the Brother Sun Sister Moon movie over and over again for days. He puts it on so it will minister to us. I think it's the funniest thing I've ever seen; he'll run into the room, rewind it to the beginning of the song, watch it, and then run back out, leaving me and the other occupants of the room staring blankly at each other. As I said to Derek the other day, as challenging as life can be around here, or in this ministry sometimes, we definitely never run out of entertainment.

We watched Elf last night, which is my new favorite Christmas classic. Don't hate me for this, but A Christmas Story is too American for me and A Christmas Carol is too scary. Kid A likes A Charlie Brown Christmas, but much less than a Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, so we mostly watch that. I don't blame him... the kids are a little TOO mean to poor old Charlie in the Christmas one.

I had a spastic get-everything-done-at-once day today and cleaned the Big House (more creative names) as well as doing about eight loads of Land laundry and cooking my famous chicken soup (okay, not that famous) that I also put homemade noodles in for supper. Go pregnant girl! I think I'm getting close to the end, now, as a super crazy burst of energy can tell. Although, my burst of energy with Kid A was still weeks off. I just want this yummy baby to be born so I can kiss his face and milky mouth. (Let's not focus on how his mouth gets to be milky, as that means many days or weeks of pain for me as I get used to nursing again.)

Chinua also has been doing some therapeutic cleaning as he continues to sort through the garage. Today it was buckets of assorted nails. Sounds a little neurotic to me, although my dear husband is anything but neurotic.